| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Forged Coupon by Leo Tolstoy: On their way Stepan took care of Smokovnikov,
like his own child, and told him his story; told
him why he had been sent here, and what now
filled his life.
And, strange to say, Mitia Smokovnikov, who
up to that time used to spend his time drinking,
eating, and gambling, began for the first time to
meditate on life. These thoughts never left him
now, and produced a complete change in his habits.
After a time he was offered a very advantageous
position. He refused it, and made up his mind
 The Forged Coupon |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Return of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: fallen before Tarzan's shots, and, finding that both were
dead, left them where they lay.
"Why did you not tell me that you contemplated ambushing
those fellows?" asked the sheik in a hurt tone. "We might
have had them all if the seven of us had stopped to meet them."
"Then it would have been useless to stop at all," replied
Tarzan, "for had we simply ridden on toward Bou Saada they
would have been upon us presently, and all could have been
engaged. It was to prevent the transfer of my own quarrel
to another's shoulders that Abdul and I stopped off to
question them. Then there is your daughter--I could not be the
 The Return of Tarzan |